Forgive Us Our Trespasses
by sternenacht
Summary: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Bruno Buccellati has never seen Abbacchio open his wings. Something is wrong, and he's going to get to the bottom of it. [MONSTER AU.]


All things considered, the group had adjusted pretty well to having the angel around. Even if Abbacchio was more abrasive than Bruno expected, and he didn't really talk much unless hurling insults like stones in glass houses, he always performed excellently on missions. Most importantly, and unlike the younger team members, he always cleaned up after himself. Every so often the too-stoic facade thinned and a glimmer of his former self shone through. Bruno relished those moments when Abbacchio seemed so familiar yet so distant, and it was the most vulnerable he ever saw him sober.

It was the oddest feeling, really, that bloomed unwelcome (but not unpleasantly) whenever they bumped into each other from opposite sides of the tight corners tucked away in the top floor of Buccellati's home. Both of their rooms were up there, as Bruno saw it prudent to give Abbacchio the proper height to take flight from, and he himself loved nothing more than his privacy. Since the others were so unwilling to climb a few extra flights of stairs when it came down to it, Bruno abused their laziness. He, however, didn't have legs, which made him quite silent as he slithered about. Leone didn't so much walk as he did float, light on his feet even without the two snow-white wings so long they dragged in the ground if Abbacchio didn't make the effort to carry them.

Every time, he'd kill his small smile as the other jumped back about a foot (Leone was always so in-your-face that sometimes it was hard to remember angels were prey animals) and said a small, quiet, "sorry". Always so unguarded in those moments. It was something intimate, something private, a side of Leone that nobody saw unless he let them, and the dissonance between his spiny presentation and squishy core was equal parts intoxicating and off-beat unnerving.

Bruno wanted to see it more often.

One thing Bruno had never seen (and it rubbed him the wrong way) was the full span of Abbacchio's wings. "How big are they?" he asked once, a long time ago, and the angel looked so downright _scandalized _that he hadn't asked again. It was one of those things that you simply did not talk about with your boss, it seemed.

At the end of the day, he was Leone's superior, and anything Bruno ordered him to do, he'd have to carry out with emotionless efficiency. No matter how interested he was in… getting to know him better, it would be inappropriate to initiate anything. Bruno never allowed himself the headspace to think about Leone beyond what he had to, until a certain werewolf joined their team.

"Buccellati, sir."

"I'm not a sir."

"Don't you think it's kind of weird how you've never actually seen the angel guy, whatshisname-"

"Abbacchio, you mean?"

"Have you ever actually seen him open up his wings?"

Buccellati had to stop and think. He hadn't. There were a million explanations as to why, but his mind would not stop on one. "No, I don't think I have."

"Isn't that kinda strange?" Mista took his silence as permission to continue. "They're a part of his body, same as your tail or mine. But he never flies, he never does the grooming thing that one cute harpy I'm kind of into does, and he never even opens them up! Besides, whenever I'm around him, I always feel like I can kind of smell something rotting. Have you _seen_ the guy? He's batshit _crazy_ about staying clean!"

"And?"

"It's really weird how he showers twice a day-"

"Maybe you should follow his lead," Bruno remarked dryly.

"And he _still_ smells like death! Can't you sense it with your, I don't know, snake tongue thing?"

Crossing his arms, Bruno rolled his eyes down at Mista. The ears poking out from under the boy's hat pinned close to his head under the weight of his scrutiny. "No, I don't make a habit of licking my subordinates unless I have probable cause. It isn't very good for morale, I've been told. Get to the point. Unless you don't have one, and you've just pulled me aside to gossip?"

Mista's shoulders hunched. "Buccellati, you know I am the world's most carefree guy. And I'm actually _worried_ about him. That's not normal! Abbacchio's a _huuuuge_ asshole, but something is wrong. Consider it my canine intuition!" he puffed out his chest and just like that was back to his usual swaggering simplicity.

Bruno ruminated on the observations at hand. Mista was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if there was one thing he did have going for him, it was his uncanny ability to make wild predictions that turned out correct. "Even if that is the case, do you really think Abbacchio would ever come to us for help? He'd rather die than act like he needs someone."

"Which is exactly my point! If he won't come out and ask for it, then it's your job to help him regardless."

"Oh, is this solely my responsibility now?"

"Yeah, but you _want_ to be his hero, don't you?" Guido said, suddenly serious. He left the room before Buccellati had a chance to respond.

—-

Dinner that night was awkward, to say the least. Mista was hellbent on making his "plan" as obvious as possible, trading his usual seat on Abbacchio's right with an empty space. Somehow he'd even persuaded Narancia to abandon the post on the other side of Buccellati, who sat at the head of the table. Copious amounts of bribery were almost certainly involved. Bruno privately wondered how much Guido had to pay the little cervitaur to give up his seat.

"So, Abba," Leone cringed at the nickname, "been to the doctor lately?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Leone shifted and tucked his wings further behind his body as if to protect them. His fingers twitched on the table as if reaching for something. It didn't go unnoticed. Bruno watched from his seat. Then, in a drawling, mocking, voice about an octave above where he usually spoke, "Have you goooone grocery shopping laaaaately?"

Narancia snorted into his steak.

"You don't need to dodge the question!" Mista viciously shoved a piece of almost-raw (just the way he liked it) meat into his mouth.

"I'm not dodging the question!" he snapped back. "That's just a stupid-ass question to ask at a family dinner. What answer are you angling for me to give?"

Weirdly daintily for a man with enough body hair to make a fur coat, Mista steepled his fingers below his chin. "Dunno. Do you have an answer worth angling for?" he asked, kittenish.

Abbacchio flushed and shot up like a bullet, slamming his hands on the table with a bang. "I don't have to sit here and take this. I'm leaving," He snarled, took his plate, and started for the kitchen in a dark cloud, overcoat flooding out behind him.

"Please, _wait!" _Fugo began, grasping for his wings as if to stop him.

"_Don't _touch me!" Abbacchio yelled, whipped around, and shoved Fugo backwards with vicious force. Pannacotta met the table with a rattle of glassware on wood but luckily nothing fell. Without any other outbursts he swept from the room, so pissed off Bruno could almost see the steam rising from his shoulders.

Mista just gave Bruno a look and made a _go on_ gesture as the other two watched in shock at the space by the door Leone had just occupied. Fugo rose to his feet with a groan, head having fallen off his shoulders at the upset. Smoke rose from the place where his head and neck should have met, connecting the two in long wisps. "Excuse me," he interjected, "but Mista, Fugo, Narancia, can you please take care of cleanup?" and left as well, going after Abbacchio to the one place he went where he thought nobody could follow: the roof.

—-

It took several minutes of looping his tail around various outcrops (he was too long to simply pull himself up, curse his reptilian heritage), but eventually he made it up. Subtlety was not an option when forced into such embarrassing contortions, and by the time he was comfortable in the surface beneath him again, Leone was already waiting with his back to the chimney. The blue tiles he stood on clacked as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Hi," he said, sparing Bruno only a glance before returning back to inside his own head.

"Do you want to explain to me what your little outburst at dinner was about?" he wrapped his tail underneath himself and sat down on it.

Leone's jaw clenched while he swallowed the spite building up in the pit of his stomach, then unclenched. "Don't patronize me."

"That's a no, then?"

"Is it such a crime that I'm not willing to put up with the annoying one's incessant needling? If I was in the room with the three of them for any longer, Lord knows there would've been more damage than my pride getting bruised."

"You're being very unhelpful."

"What am I supposed to be cooperating with? Answer me this honestly, Buccellati: is this a conversation between allies, a reprimand from boss to subordinate, or an interrogation?"

"Ideally, it's none of those things." Bruno sighed and scooted a bit closer to him. "I… care about you." And, realizing his mistake, "We all do. If there's something wrong, you can tell us and we won't make fun of you for it."

"Narancia would."

Bruno amended his statement with a crescent grin. "All of us but Narancia." The moonlight reflected off of his scales and cast dramatic shadows onto his face that made him look centuries older than he was. The clips in his hair glimmered like stars on a space-deep backdrop of perfect silky locks. Did he know how beautiful he was, Leone wondered? Did he know what his altruism, his fundamental _goodness, _did to Leone's poor bleeding heart?

"If you're going to yell at me, just get it over with." Leone's voice held no room for fight in it; only resignation.

"You won't tell me what's troubling you."

"No."

"So there _is _something!"

Abbacchio swore viciously. "There is nothing wrong. Everything is fine. I don't know what's up with you and your saint complex, but you've done enough for me already. You don't need to save me from the…. monster in my closet or whatever you think it is."

"If you're fine, then prove it."

"What in the fu-"

"We both know I can taste a liar. If you are truly getting along just fine, then take a seat and we'll evaluate the truth of that." Bruno patted his tail for good measure.

Half-feral irises glittered with something unidentifiable like the city lights gleaming behind him. Abbacchio wasn't hard to read, not at all, but every once in a while some strange never-seen-before emotion made its way along and threw Bruno for a loop. As he surreptitiously scooted back towards the way down, Bruno catalogued a new one. He'd examine it more later. "I'm not going to sit on you," Leone defended. _How weak. _

"Have it your way," Bruno flicked a hand, airy-mannered, "but we're not finished with this discussion. You are going to either get your head out of your ass and be civil to your teammates or we are getting to the bottom of your apparently deep-seeded issues that make you act like such an ogre towards your friends and family."I'm not capable of stopping you from feeling like you do, but I cannot allow you to take it out on my children."

"What friends and family?" Abbacchio muttered lowly, as if trying not to be heard, lips twisting into a nasty grin Bruno was all too familiar with. It was less a smile and more a grimace: all teeth and bitterness and the hatred Leone kept crystallized on the inside of his ribcage. Perhaps that was what prevented him from flying; it weighed him down so heavily that he could no longer get off the ground. Did Leone really not see them as anything more than colleagues at best? "I've got myself, and that's about all I deserve."

Buccellati watched his heart drop to the alley below as Abbacchio dropped off the roof, grabbed the ledge, and swung back inside his open bedroom window. Alone in the darkness, he could not find the nerve to do the same.

—-

The minute Abbacchio was confident he wouldn't be disturbed, he locked his window and drew the curtains and jammed the chair at his desk below the doorknob so none of the infants could interrupt. If Buccellati couldn't find another path down, he would simply have to wait until Leone was good and ready to let him back in.

Larger than even a king-sized, his bed was _huge. _There was no other way to properly describe it; something straight out of a fairy tale, draped in heavy quilts for days with enough pillows to drown in. Dark blankets, dark walls, dark bedframe- Abbacchio was nothing if not predictable.

_Leone was no stranger to exorbitant price tags (he dressed himself in Versace and Saint Laurent if given the freedom to, a habit left over from a high-rise penthouse youth), but this was a new extreme even for him. "Buccellati, you don't have to spend that much money on me, really, I'm fine with a twin and maybe a dresser or something if you really want to push it."_

"_Nonsense. You can't expect I'd let you sleep so cramped up? Poor rest impacts performance." He had a point there, and Leone growled out a resigned agreement. _

"_And the rest of the room?" he combatted, grasping at straws for some way to stop Buccellati's relentless kindness. _

"_You'll pay me back by cooking dinner tonight." The other man was gentle, but his steel did not go unnoticed. _I am buying this for you, and that is final. _An unstoppable force met an immovable object. Abbacchio's will bent at the knee for him without any more thought. _

Of course, he only ever used the far right corner of it. Nothing could attack him from behind, could look at the festering mess on his back, if he kept it pressed against the wall. He was safe. Leone flung himself down onto his mattress and nearly bit through his black-stained lips when he landed on a deteriorating limb. The only thing stifling the scream of pain threatening to bubble out, and make his self-inflicted torment known to the rest of the team was the knowledge they'd not let him be until he righted himself. What if he did not want to be righted? None of them would allow him to suffer as he wished. With small, hesitant, movements, Leone pulled the damaged wing out from under his torso. He knew from experience that his almost silent pained hiss was inaudible from the other side of the wall.

It was worse than he remembered. The internals were more or less intact, as he could reach those without growing an extra limb or losing a few ribs. No, his real struggle lay on the external feathers, the ones that only others could straighten or dispose of. Abbacchio would not allow himself to acknowledge the struggle as he forced atrophied muscles to open and hold up half his total body weight. They were meant for this. It was easy. It hurt like hell. Wasn't that what he was after? He wasn't so sure any more. _I had this coming. Cripple me. _

Leone missed the sky, but people like him didn't deserve to miss anything.

If only the other fuckups had the willpower to inflict their own punishment instead of waiting for a God who was anything but benevolent to do it for them.

A mirror hung on the outside of his closet door and he did a sardonic spin for the Nobody in his head to judge. Leone didn't see anything new. The same old mold-grey patches of rot he'd grown desensitized to on the tips of the particularly worn feathers winked back at him like the world's most screwed-up pickup artists. His wings dropped to the ground with a _thump_ as he released the growing ache in his back. They jerked pitifully as Leone yelped, the foot of the desk he swore he'd move every time he stubbed his toe preventing his wings from making a clean-ish descent to the floor. As quickly as he'd dropped them, Leone pulled the feathered limbs back up to their resting place folded behind his shoulders. They settled back into their familiar haunt, no longer strained out of the ordinary.

Sooner or later the deterioration would make its way into his bloodstream, he'd get sick, and his penance would finally pay itself off in terms of a snails' crawl death. Leone tucked everything neatly away; his pain lingering both physical and emotional, and nobody was any the wiser. Just the way he liked it.

_I'm so tired. _

Experimentally, he stretched around his back to see if he could grip at some of the offending feathers. Leone wasn't as flexible as he once was, however, and the ends of the decay taunted him just out of reach of his fingertips. The will to live still thrummed beneath his skin and exploded in full force as he balled his fist in perfectly fine living feathers, and pulled. Leone would later deny the way he screamed.

He sunk to the floor, wings tented over his head and face in his hands. He cried silently.

Bruno was the first one to react. So quick; was he waiting outside for something? The doorknob rattled and shook, but would not open. "Shit!" he barked, "Abbacchio, are you okay?" He didn't respond. His mouth opened dumbly and then closed again. "If you don't respond in three seconds, I am unzipping the wall and coming inside. One."

_Bruno, please._

"Two."

_Don't see me like this._

"Three!"

"Buccellati, _wait-!"_

"STICKY FINGERS!"

The wall cleaved in two with a giant zipper as the culprit, and Buccellati rushed inside, pistol at the ready. He scanned the room with a frozen-ice glare until his furious, hiemal, attention landed on Abbacchio and melted.

Like a frightened child, same teeth-and-anger grin splitting his flesh in two and certainly not doing his smudged lipstick any favors, he sat on the floor. He didn't move even as Bruno came closer and gagged. "Oh, my God," he said softly. "Mista was right."

"What the hell are you doing in here?" Maybe if he was mean enough, Bruno would get the hint and leave him alone. Dark lines cut his face in the pitiful form of running mascara. "Get out," he snarled. Bruno did no such thing and instead zipped up the hole in the wall, leaving them both inside together. He slid the chair out from underneath the doorknob and sat down primly. Abbacchio flinched at the mechanical creak of weight settling onto a surface that was not made for it. "All I need now is something to get piss-drunk on and we'll really have a party. Are you going to bring some more guests to laugh at me?"

"What is wrong with your wings? Why are they…. rotting?" Bruno pulled the empty trash can with the plastic bag lining it into his lap. His throat bobbed. "I think I'm going to be ill. Is this why you keep them closed all the time?" So Bruno could zipper grown men into pieces and bury bodies without breaking a sweat, but the sight of a little degradation made him sick to his stomach?

The cat was out of the bag. No point in hiding anything now. "Pretty much," Leone cackled, but it petered out into a coughing fit.

"How did this happen?"

His own feathers still lay in his lap. Brushing them off, Leone wished he was more tactful. "At first it was just because I can't reach that far on my back. Then, I figure it's just what I get."

Buccellati watched him like he was liable to hurt himself if the other turned away. He got up, not letting go of the trash can, and wordlessly offered his other hand to Abbacchio. "Don't look at me like that," he snapped, "Like I'm someone worth pitying." That only made it worse. Bruno's frown deepened and the corners of his eyes grew so fucking _sad_ that Abbacchio thought he should be the one holding the trash can with how goddamn sick he felt.

"How did you _let _this happen?"

"I can't reach," he repeated, "And after my little... fall, nobody else was going to do it for me. This is better. I'm a disgrace, remember?" If Bruno's heart had been torn out and tossed down a few stories before, Abbacchio stomped on it now. His words were laced with such vitriol that it hurt to even be in the vicinity of them. "I'm better off…" Leone paused and breathed in a sharp gasp that served only to fuel his sobs, "sequestered away, ideally, where I can die in peace and necrotize before anyone finds me."

"Stop talking,"

Leone grew very quiet. He flinched, as if preparing to be hit.

"I can't be the help you need, but there's one thing I can help you with. Get up and lay on your bed, shirt off and laying on your stomach."

"Wh-what?"

"Please, Leone?"

Compliance only came after a long, slow, showdown. Leone stood on unsteady legs and followed orders with hunched shoulders like he was going on a death march. What was he afraid of? His bravado came crashing down around his ears in the face of actual opposition, and in the eyes was the not-entirely-there stare of a terrified animal. "I'm sorry," he supplied and moved to get up once properly settled, but Bruno stopped him with a well-placed push back down to the small of his back.

"It's all right. May I touch your wings? I don't have any expertise, but I can spot the decomposing bits even with an untrained eye. I'm sure if you assist me in the tricky spots too, I can nudge the strangely laying ones back into place as well."

He was silent, not quite sure what to do in the calm and the quiet.

"You can say no. I can't force you into anything. But in the end, this is for your own good, and it will be done sooner or later. I am not going to let you die here from something so easily preventable."

"Just do it."

"Tell me if I hurt you." Bruno pushed one of Abbacchio's many pillows beneath him and Abbacchio gratefully took it, yanking it under his chest to support his now-bare torso. He was warm to the touch against Bruno's cold-blooded flesh, and so _beautiful. _Shiny silver hair blanketed itself over porcelain-pale skin, grand white wings completing the beautifully contrasting picture of the angel on his night-dark covers. A light touch ghosted over Leone's shoulders and he shivered. "Let's begin."

Bruno's hands were gentle and talented albeit inexperienced, but in the end that didn't matter. The trash can from before made itself very useful as it collected the blackened feathers, more and more until it nearly overflowed with what should have been disposed of long ago. They didn't hurt to pull out; the nerve endings long since gone. Abbacchio didn't even flinch. Every tug was economical, more like a hand stroking hair than anything. At last after minutes of unusually painstaking effort (he hadn't expected it to be so difficult), Bruno declared the war against Leone's own self neglect a success. Small dots of crimson poked out in between otherwise perfect white, but they didn't seem to hurt all that much, as it didn't wake Leone up. As a final well-wish, Bruno idly straightened the strays still attached, and then realized one more thing about the angel on the bed: in addition to never seeing his full wingspan before now, he'd never seen Abbacchio sleep either.

Oh, sure, he'd seen Abbacchio tired, bags under the eyes darker than usual even when concealed several times over and all too ready to pick a fight with anyone who humored him, but never asleep. His perpetual murder glare softened into a gentler version of himself. Eyebrows still drawn on harsh and dark, it was almost comical to look at the heavily-made-up lines that stood out so obviously. _If he doesn't take that off, he'll break out. _

Abbacchio always kept his wipes on his desk next to the mirror.

"_I look like shit without any makeup on," he rolled his eyes and avoided eye contact, but somehow Bruno doubted that. "My eyebrows disappear_. _I look like I fucking shaved them off. They're white unless I pencil them in. The rest just kind of sucks all around." _

"_Don't say that about yourself. Cut it out.'"_

"_Or what? You'll make me?" he jeered, challenging. Bruno smiled back beatifically. _

"_Want to test that?"_

They weren't hard to find once Bruno knew where to look. Only a few left in the box, he slid back over to where Abbacchio lay and assessed the situation at hand. The container opened with a click and he went to work. They were cool against his skin and pulled off layers of foundation, highlighter, eyeliner, and mascara. Near-black eyeshadow came away soon after, then the ever-mythological brows. Did he seriously put this much effort into looking like someone other than himself every day? Coming to halfway through, Leone gave him a calm half-lidded gaze before he sighed and went back to sleep. It was like taming a lion; how apt, given his namesake!

He wasn't joking when he said he looked different without makeup. All of his sharp edges spurred into existence by hours in front of a mirror smoothed out into a kinder-looking Leone. If he were awake, he'd revolt at the idea of being described as something not beautiful in its cruelty, but luckily for them both, he was asleep. Human instead of a hurricane.

Bruno called out Sticky Fingers to unzip his bed covers, pulled them over Leone, and zipped them back up as he left. He would not heal quickly, but he would heal, and that was what mattered to the other.

"Good night, Leone." And then, whether it was the anonymity of knowing the other could not hear it or something else entirely, he added, "I love you."


End file.
